It's a boat, but it's more like a simple raft — it's a miniature kind.

Qiao Xi threw the small raft into the water, and the raft gradually grew larger, until it became the size that humans usually use.

- Although it is said that using a raft on the sea is a bit of a death, but they are monsters, and they are just a formality, and they don't really rely on this raft to cross this sea.

Yamabuki Otome looked at the raft floating with the waves with a look of surprise and novelty, and sighed, "Is this the ship used by the legendary humans?" Human beings, indeed, are imaginative beings. ”

Qiao Xi jumped on the raft, stood at one end and stretched out her hand towards the mountain blowing otome, and couldn't help but laugh when she heard her sigh like this:

"While it's true that humans are imaginative beings, this isn't really a ship."

"Huh?"

Yamabuki Otome also jumped onto the raft while holding Qiao Xi's hand, and at the same time her eyes widened: "Really? ”

Qiao Xi smiled and nodded: "Really! ”

As he spoke, he raised his eyes and looked around, hoping to find a large fishing boat for human beings to give his divine envoy a long insight, but after looking around, he didn't see anything.

He tilted his head with some confusion: "Well~ Why can't you see a boat?" It wouldn't be such a coincidence that all the ships went to sea. ”

When Yamabuki Otome heard Qiao Xi say this, she couldn't help but look around, and couldn't help but make a guess after finding nothing:

"Maybe they're back late today."

Qiao Xi laughed: "You're right. However, I have heard that human beings often go to sea for dozens of days to two or three months, so maybe we can meet them on the sea. So—"

Qiao Xi said in his mouth, but the movements in his hands did not stop, and he stuffed a paddle in Yamabuki Otome's hand, and took one herself, signaling her to learn her own movements.

The first time Yamabuki Otome touched the oars, it was a novelty, and after a few spins on the water, the raft was already in shape.

Just as they were about to set off, a sudden series of calls rang out from the distant shore.

"Hey-hey-wait-"

Qiao Xi stopped his movements and looked in the direction where the sound came from, and saw a boy in his teens and a half years old running over the reef with a jump.

It didn't take long for the boy to run up to him, holding his knees and gasping for breath a few times before he looked up at Qiao Xi and Yabuki Otome.

The moment he saw the two of them, the young man was obviously stunned for a moment, his pupils shrank slightly, and the original anxiety in his eyes was suddenly stained with a trace of fear:

"Well, you, are you going to sea?"

Qiao Xi didn't miss the young man's momentary emotional change, but only replied quietly: "Yes." Is there anything wrong? ”

The young man bit his lip, opened his mouth to speak, and stopped, looking a little entangled, Qiao Xi was very patient, and he didn't urge, just smiled and waited for him to sort out his emotions.

After a while, perhaps it was the over-urgency that overcame his fear, or perhaps the aura on Qiao Xi's body was very easy to make people feel trusted, the young man mustered up his courage and gritted his teeth and said, "Are you - are you monsters?" ”

Qiao Xi laughed "poof": "Is there anything else that asks directly like this?" ”

He smiled and touched his chin, staring at the young man's eyes with interest, "So—what if it's true?" What if not? ”

When he said this, the various emotions that flashed in the young man's eyes were really funny, so funny that he couldn't help but laugh out loud "hahaha".

Yamabuki Otome couldn't help but shout helplessly: "My lord." ”

The boy was stunned by his laughter for a few seconds, and then reacted, not angry, but relaxed.

- He probably thought that it wouldn't be a youkai who could joke like that.

"Well, if you're going to sea, can you take me with you?"

Qiao Xi stopped laughing, turned his head and glanced at Yamabuki Otome.

It was about three or four o'clock in the afternoon, when the sun was strong, and he thought about it, so he jumped off the raft, and the three of them sat down behind the shady reef.

Qiao Xi took out his onmyoji waistcoat again, so the young man repeated his request with some excitement and apprehension, and said the reason why he made such a request.

"In the past half a year, more than 30 people have been hidden here."

The coastal villages have always made a living from fishing, and although technology has advanced a bit in recent years, it is so remote that they have only heard of steam fishing boats being built, but they have never seen them in person.

Once, when a passing passenger mentioned various scenes on the other side of the sea, several young people who were eager to change followed the traveler out to sea.

- At first, the others waited for them to come back with a sense of anticipation and hopelessness, with the occasional cynicism.

But this wait, I waited for a long time.

One year, two years.

Everyone thought they had probably disappeared into the sea—after all, sometimes the sea was not good-natured.

It wasn't until the fifth year that the young men who had gone out to sea with the travelers returned.

Six people left, but only one returned.

The man had returned from a wrecked ship that was almost rotten, and when he got off board, no one even believed that it was one of the young men who had gone to sea five years earlier.

There was no difference between the shape of the ship and the one when it went to sea, but the ship that came back seemed to have been eroded by decades and nearly a hundred years, and then the old man with white hair drooping down from the ship tremblingly on crutches and told the fantastical, strange and terrifying story that happened at sea.

——————————————

When they first started to go to sea, several young people were very excited, or pestered the passengers to tell some anecdotes, or they were excited to lie on the bow of the boat to fish and watch the sea.

However, except for the occasional storm, the sea is always calm, and the endless sea surface has always been unchanging, and people who are not familiar with it have never even been able to figure out the direction.

They were lucky not to encounter a terrible storm, but after the first excitement had passed, the young men were undoubtedly bored.

They discussed that they had to find something interesting.

With this in mind, several young people tried to find the stab (to die), but before they could make any big news, one morning, a young man suddenly found that the passenger was missing.

It was the ninth day of sailing, and the passenger disappeared from the ship without warning.

Over the next few days, the people on board disappeared without a trace—and only six young men were left from the village.